Rat Race

A man I have never heard of died today. I only discovered the news when my husband sent me a news article detailing this man's life and works. His name was Jimmy Reid. He was a trade unionist leader in Scotland during the difficult days of the early 1970's. And together with a man named Bobby Dickie, he led a successful protest against the closure of a shipyard on the river Clyde. There was no violence. No picketing. No strike. He persuaded his colleagues to simply stay in their factory, to complete their work and, if it came to it, to put up no resistance to police efforts to remove them. It worked. And to this day the shipyard on the Clyde remains in use and profitable.

All of this information is hardly news. It happened last century. But Jimmy Reid became a hero. And he is still considered a hero by many today. His career following his life as an engineering shop steward was rather glittering. He became a journalist; writing columns, hosting television programmes and even making a documentary. And in 1972, in recognition of all he had achieved, he was made rector of Glasgow university and at his inauguration he gave a speech.

Whether you love or loathe the politics of Jimmy Reid, or even if you've never heard of him until today, there is no doubting the beauty and the power of the words he spoke on that day.

I often think about the nature of the workplace. How corrupt it can be. How often it forces those in it to spend a life in vicious pursuit of either survival or materialism. How it flies in the face of so many of the teachings of a humble carpenter from Galilee. What does it mean to be a Christian in the world of big business and mass consumerism?

On that day way back in 1972, Jimmy Reid summed up what I and many millions of other people feel when faced with the reality of working life in our modern, developed, civilised country.

I have nothing left to add here. His words produce something more powerful than I ever could.

“A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings.

“Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of self promotion and self advancement.

“This is how it starts and, before you know where you are, you’re a fully paid up member of the rat pack.

“The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit.

“Or as Christ puts it ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?’”.

Jimmy Reid RIP